The Associated Students canceled and invalidated its May 2-3 election because of a set of checks and balances that could have allowed votes to be cast multiple times.<\/p>\n
The polling station problems led to the resignation of Commissioner of Elections Chuck Stevens. The board is fixing the problems and plans to hold a new election May 18-19.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere will only be one polling place with a master list of students\u2019 identification numbers,\u201d said Jennifer Niel, director of Student Life. \u201cAs students approach, those names will be marked off, and I will be there doing that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Neil said that Stevens made the decision to quit and he did what he could, \u201cbut I think it got out of control.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stevens said his plans and timelines for the election were critiqued at every turn, without any suggestions on how to be better. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe way that we were going to conduct the ballot was approved by the council,\u201d Stevens said. <\/p>\n
\u201cOne of my committee members came to me and said that (writing student ID numbers on the ballots and making sure that students aren\u2019t double-voting) was \u2018marking the ballot\u2019 and we couldn\u2019t do that.\u201d<\/p>\n
Stevens said he faced many obstacles with his ideas for having a functioning poll system and \u201cany idea we came up with, somebody found something wrong with it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dan Ho, 19, English major and also the AS commissioner of publicity, said he supports Stevens\u2019 decision to leave the AS and wishes him the best in his endeavors and \u201cI am continuously working to improve getting the news out about the new elections.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tony LaRosa, 31, political science major, said he was infuriated when he was able to vote at both polling locations because the poll workers weren\u2019t checking IDs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are supposed to be running an election. How could you call it a valid election without qualifying the voters?\u201d LaRosa said. \u201cEveryone and their mother could have stuffed the ballot box.\u201d<\/p>\n
LaRosa said he wrote a very strongly worded letter to Elaine Burns, vice president of student services.<\/p>\n
Later that night, Stevens said he invalidated the day\u2019s ballots.
\n\u201cAs commissioner, it is my decision alone to cancel and invalidate elections,\u201d Stevens said. <\/p>\n
\u201cI like that he (LaRosa) took the initiative to try and fix the broken election, and force them to follow the rules,\u201d said Pedro Vinson, 40, ethnic studies major.\u202f \u201cNow I might actually do a little research and vote and take part in this election because before I had no interest.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Associated Students canceled and invalidated its May 2-3 election because of a set of checks and balances that could have allowed votes to be cast multiple times. The polling station problems led to the resignation of Commissioner of Elections Chuck Stevens. The board is fixing the problems and plans to hold a new election…<\/p>","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"staff_name":[576],"class_list":["post-1313","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinion","staff_name-emily-land"],"yoast_head":"\n